Only he didn't look shocked.
"Really? Interesting." The whip end cracked into the palm of his hand. "Just enough sting, huh?"
Ashley jumped involuntarily. My God, was that lust in Lucas's eyes? Of course it wasn't. He was just interested, seeking all the answers, the way he always did. Next he'd be asking her the best way to use it for maximizing pleasure. Not because he wanted to use it, but because he wanted to know how everything worked. Pick it apart. Figure it out. Like the microwave he'd destroyed at age twelve.
"So, is there a reason your whole apartment is filled with sex toys? Or are you just entering a fun phase in your life?" He had the feather end under his chin now, rolling it back and forth so the purple plumes rose around him. He looked ridiculous.
And cute.
Damn it. Why was she thinking that? Flustered, Ashley ran her hand through her hair. "Put that down somewhere and help me unpack these lotions." If he was going to hang around, the least he could do was make himself useful. "And for your information, I'm trying to make some extra money so I'm selling romance enhancing products. I'm having an open house in an hour."
"Oh."
She could practically hear the wheels churning in his head at high speed.
"Have you personally tried all these products?"
The Pleasure Party company had seventy-three products in the line, two-thirds of them scattered around her apartment right now. Was he freaking serious? How much free time did he think she had?
"No." She was just going to leave it at that. If she volunteered any information, he'd be asking her which ones she'd tried and why.
"I wouldn't want to sell something I hadn't tried myself." Lucas had been studying a bottle of edible massage lotion. He opened it, squirted some on the back of his hand and licked it. "Huh. Chocolate." His nose screwed up. "But somehow licking it off my own hand just doesn't do anything for me."
And before she could even protest, call him an idiot, or collect the twelve bucks retail that bottle cost, he reached out, snatched her arm and slathered chocolate lotion all over her.
But even stranger than that, was the sudden hot kick of interest from her inner thighs. Which was horrifying. She should be ashamed of herself.
Lucas was a baby.
Well, not that young exactly, since he was her brother Jason's age, and she was pretty sure Jason had turned twenty-five last December, but still. She was twenty-eight, damn near twenty-nine, she reminded herself firmly as his head bent over her.
Besides, she had never really thought of Lucas in a sexual way. He was too serious, too smart; he was above all those base physical urges.
He licked her arm.
Or not.
Two
Lucas hadn't meant to lick Ashley.
He wasn't usually impulsive, but he was curious if the lotion would taste different on her skin than it did on his. He imagined it was designed to react to an individual's body heat. Not to mention that everyone secreted different amounts of perspiration.
The opportunity to taste Ashley's flesh was too tempting to pass up.
So he had licked.
And damned if it didn't taste a hell of a lot better. In fact, it was delicious. Like rich, creamy, chocolate mousse, cool on a warm spoon.
"Mmm, that's good. Have you tried it?" Running his tongue over her moist wrist one more time to get the stray bits, Lucas chanced a glance up at Ashley.
Her green eyes were huge. Her breathing was a bit faster than normal. She shook her head, and Lucas had to acknowledge to himself that he was hopelessly, pathetically in love with her.
It was the only explanation for why he let her rent this apartment at half its market value, and why he could never seem to get involved with a woman beyond casual dating. It explained why he wanted to ram a fist into the face of every big stupid ugly jock Ashley had dated-and there had been quite a few.
He was in love with her, and just once he wanted her to see him as more than Jason's friend.
He wanted her to see him as a man.
Which was why he lifted her arm to her mouth. "Try it."
Ashley shook her head even harder. "No, I just ate dinner."
He nearly grinned, but kept it back. "It's not meant to fill you up, Ash, it's to turn you on."
She took a step back, yanking her arm from his grip, looking flustered. "Well, I know that. I'm the Pleasure Party consultant here, after all."
He was certain she'd make an excellent one. Ashley had good people skills, something he could not claim, and her enthusiasm could probably sell a hell of a lot of dildos. Yet she always seemed to underestimate herself, making comments about never being able to expect more than the entry-level job she had at a computer design firm.
It bothered him, which seemed to be further evidence that he was irrationally in love with her.
"What kind of training did you receive? For ease of selling, I would think you'd want to personally experience as many products as possible." His eye fell on the tickle-whip contraption he'd set down on the table. Had she used that?
On the one hand, the thought had him painfully hard. On the other hand, the idea that some guy-some low-IQ Encino Man, half a step below a chimp, bonehead used-car salesman-had taken a fake whip to Ashley's bare skin made him so angry the room sharpened into red-hot focus while his veins throbbed.
She wiped her wet arm on her pink-and-white striped skirt. It was soft and clingy and one side was shorter than the other. Her shirt was sleeveless, white, with a big fake pink flower pinned on it. It was kind of overblown and odd, but knowing Ashley, it was trendy and expensive. Her shoes were spiky little high-heeled sandals that looked painful at best, lethal at worst.
“Lucas, I don't have time for this. I'm not even finished setting up and people are going to be here in thirty minutes.” She ripped open one "Pinky" and took it out of the package. Shaking it at him, she said, "Either help me unpack or go home."
He could honestly say that being reprimanded with a neon dildo was something of a strange experience. He felt like he had when he was thirteen and his dad had caught him with a pilfered Playboy. Ashamed and slightly dirty.
And fighting the urge to bust his gut laughing at the ridiculousness of it.
Lucas bent over and grabbed a box and hefted it onto the table. Ashley moved away from him, finding a spot for "Pinky" on another table, before she started fussing with some folders and brochures.
He arranged massage oils, lotions, and shaving cream onto the table in neat, tidy little rows. Looking at all the flavors and textures of lotions and powders, and reading all their buzz words like erogenous, erotic, maximum pleasure, and stimulate, he was getting a little uncomfortable.
"Is it hot in here? Is your air-conditioning unit working right?"
"Yes." Ashley had a rubber ducky in her hand.
"You sell rubber duckies? Isn't that kind of tame?"
She ripped the duck's head off. "It has a vibrating egg hidden inside." She pulled a small soft egg out and twisted it. It started humming. "It's a tub toy."
"Oh." He went back to his box, thinking. He didn't see the logic. "So, is it in a duck so no one knows it's there?"
"Yes."
"But… why would an adult have a toy duck? Wouldn't people think that was weird? And if you have kids in the house, wouldn't they want to play with it, and what if they accidentally unscrewed the head? Wouldn't that egg be a choking hazard?"
The look she shot him suggested she didn't know the answer. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"
She was trying to get rid of him, but he wasn't ready to leave just yet. It wasn't often he got a chance to see Ashley without her brother or without one of her best friends.
"No." He pulled out glow-in-the-dark condoms from the box.
"So, what's the point in these?" He spoke half to himself, genuinely puzzled. "I mean, they don't glow until they're out of the package, so it can't be meant to lead you to the nightstand. And the man is the one who needs air traffic control guiding him in, not the woman. In fact, I would think seeing a glowing pink penis would scare the shit out of most women, wouldn't it?"